Jonathan Moore a.k.a. JJ Moore to his friends, has emerged as one of the top Athlete Managers in the United States. Moore is the Division Director of CK Sports at one of the Top Talent Management Agency’s in the world CK Talent Management.
Moore has been instrumental in guiding and fixing many professional athletes careers that were in troubled situations with prior representation as well as their own troubles in their leagues, teams and personal lives. This has earned him the name as the “Fixer,” while others have call him the Ray Donovan of the industry in relation to his help with athletes that have found themselves in troubling career situations. Ray Donovan is a fictional character played by actor Leiv Schrieber in Showtimes hit drama series Ray Donovan. In the show Donovan is the “Fixer” for Hollywood’s elite. He is the go-to guy that the city’s celebrities, athletes and business moguls call to make their problems disappear.
Moore like the Ray Donovan character, came from very humble beginnings and is a deeply religious man, who attends bible study once a week and church on the weekends. In an industry of representatives who lie, cheat and steal from their athletes, Moore believes in responsibly representing his athletes in an ethical, truthful and honest manner. Moore is also a highly intelligent person, he spends his free time reading biographies, intellectual papers by intellects in various disciplines. His fellow peers at the agency call him a caring man with a huge heart. Many tell us he is the type of guy that would rather go shirtless than see someone else be without a shirt.
Moore an athlete was one of the nation’s top football receivers and punt returners, he was among the best receivers in the University of Massachusetts (UMASS) history. Sports Illustrated called him an athlete who is a huge playmaker with great speed and foot skills. They further called him a tremendous athlete with outstanding catches and handles the ball naturally. Moore was the Captain of the UMASS’s football team and counts Super Bowl winning players Brandon London (NY Giants) and Victor Cruz (NY Giants) as his friends. Moore played with London and Cruz while at UMASS. Moore recently received the honor of having his image painted on the wall at UMASS’s football stadium. This high honor is reserved for a select few athletes who are alumni of the university.
“Sometimes You’re The First”
Moore an African American is the highest ranking minority running a Sports Department at a major Talent Management agency. Moore at industry events is usually the only African American in the room with his fellow equals from other sports agencies. Moore worked his way up as an intern at CK Talent Management to Division Director, now running the agency’s Sports Division. Moore was asked this past year to come back to his Alma mater, UMASS where he received his bachelors in Sociology, to speak with students in their Sports Management Program, who will be future sports agents and managers, to impart his knowledge and experiences to them. Moore also has a Masters of Science in Entertainment Business.
Moore has been called the “Fixer” by many athletes in the industry. This honorary title comes from the many athletes careers he has “Fixed” or in other words straightened out. Moore and his team have carved a unique niche in athlete representation for straightening out the careers of athletes.
“Promise’s Don’t Fix Things”
In an industry where athlete managers and agents compete for talent by offering them anything and everything to sign them and then once the athletes sign, they realize that the promise’s offered were fake and forgotten.
What most athletes don’t realize is that these agents and managers will do what ever it takes to sign them to these agreements. Once signed the Agents tend to under deliver and in some cases not deliver at all. All while getting them into these representation contracts that result in the athlete being indebted to them financially, etc., so they can never escape. Some athletes also develop what is called the “Big Head Syndrome” and get themselves into situations off the field of play, believing they know it all then realizing they don’t, they then need a sports manager to fix things. Since their agents may have already dropped them or just won’t help them through it.
Most athletes do not understand the bait and switch game of representation that sports agents practice. They also don’t realize they should get a Sports Manager in place first before they sign with any sports agent. Sports managers solely represent their athletes interest and not those of the team or the interests of others.
“The Fixer Fixes”
Many athlete’s owe Moore a debt which they will never be able to pay back to him. He has many case’s in his files of athletes where he has “Fixed” their careers and created a future for them in their sport that was originally lost.
One of those athlete’s, was professional basketball player, Emmitt Williams. Williams found himself 8 months ago, exported to Israel to play for a sub-par dead end team and his career was at an all time low with no prospects in the NBA. Williams decided that he needed a change and decided to separated from his current agent. He then started looking for new representation, but this time he wanted a sports manager first instead of just signing with another sports agent. He reached out to Moore for an assist to bring back his career. Moore and his team went to work for Williams pulling strings to get him in the TBT tournament on ESPN, our sources within TBT tell us without Moore’s help and CK Sports pull, Williams prospects were not looking good for him to play in TBT.
Moore’s team also spent 7 weeks interviewing new prospective NBA Agents, since Williams needed a new NBA agent. They also worked on his image since Williams had a troubled image with the NBA and things within in his past prohibited most teams from even giving him a look. Moore finally decided on NBA Agent, Michael Raymond with Raymond Representation and negotiated beneficial deal for Williams, upon which he signed with Raymond as his new NBA Agent. Part of the deal Moore negotiated with Raymond for Williams was to get Williams into the House of Athletes, a prominent state of the art private training center for NBA and other professional athletes. Another part of the deal Moore worked out was getting him training time with Justin Zormelo. Zormelo is credited with igniting Kevin Durants career in the NBA, getting him placed on the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder (OKC) and him becoming the NBA’s MVP, without Zormelo we would have never known Kevin Durant.
Sources at OKC told us that one of the reasons they signed Williams for their summer league team was because he was represented by Moore and CK Sports. Williams signed with OKC and played during this years NBA summer league. Once his summer league contract was up Moore worked with Raymond on getting him on the LA Clippers G-League, who he is currently playing for. Moore also went to work on scoring Williams a branding deal with the billion dollar brand C4 Energy, which Williams is one of two NBA players representing the brand, the other being Lonzo Ball. Making Williams the only G-League basketball player with branding deals. Off the court Moore has been there for Williams as well, recently Williams was trolled on Instagram when someone set up an account to troll him, they also trolled him with posts on the Clippers official Instagram page.
Sources we spoke to close to the situation at Instagram said that CK’s Founder called in a personal favor from one of his contacts in Mark Zuckerberg office resulting in the page being removed immediately and the account holder banned from instagram and Facebook. Sources we spoke to at the NBA told us that CK’s founder also called in another personal favor from NBA Commissioner Silver’s office to have them ask the Clippers to delete the posts from their Instagram page, which the team did immediately.
When Williams met Moore, he did not have much of a career or future in the NBA and his basketball career was very much over. However with Moore’s and CK’s influence in less than eight months, Moore and his team have been instrumental in regaining Williams his lost career in the NBA. This is unheard of in professional basketball. Moore did all this in a league that still rejects Williams and has concerns about him. Our sources within the NBA say that Moore and CK Sports respect and influence has much to do with Williams career rebirth in the NBA and without them they would have not taken a second look at him. Since prior to him signing with Moore many teams had already wrote Williams off and were not interested in signing him.
“Mending Europe”
Another player that reached out to Moore when he was going through troubling situation, was European FIBA Romanian basketball MVP player Jimmie Taylor. Taylor was in a situation with his former Agent that was problematic and the sports agent was getting Taylor into situations that could damage his career and future. Taylor wanted Moore and his team at CK Sports to help manage him. Moore’s team went right to work, they reviewed his current team offer from a basketball team in Europe that the FIBA agent sent over to Taylor and was pressuring him to sign. Moore’s team realized that there was a major financial error in the salary in which the FIBA agent did not disclose and hid from Taylor. Moore brought that to Taylors attention, who then questioned it with the agent. The agent tried explaining it away and was abusive to Taylor when he questioned it. However, Taylor and Moore did not fully buy the explanation and realized there was more to the story the agent was not sharing. So these were major red flags, Moore’s then asked his team to do a deeper dive and through their research they found out that the Agent was not properly certified by FIBA.
They presented those findings to Taylor who immediately decided to fire his agent. Agents need to be properly certified by FIBA to represent athletes to the team in their league much like the NBA agents have to be in the US. Also sports agents in FIBA are not paid by their athletes like in the US the clubs/teams pay the agents over there so a sports manager is really needed to protect the athletes interests.
Moore then went to work to find Taylor a new FIBA agent who was certified properly. Taylor is now in a better position and is currently represented by an agent who is properly certified with FIBA. He also reached out to Justin Zormelo for him to also train Taylor to build his game for the up coming FIBA season. CK Sports also worked with Taylor to create his own charity to help youth who are interested in basketball. Taylor recently walked the red carpet at Miami Swim Week and sat front row at the event. Taylor also recently launch his own clothing line called JLT3. Taylor was recently asked by a fellow athlete how long he plans to stay with CK Sports he said: “Until he’s in the ground and they throwing dirt on him!”
“Building An Olympian & Influencing The Future Of The Sport”
Moore’s team also represents Olympic Skeleton athlete Sky Bakker, he reached out to CK Sports when he was having difficulty getting sponsors and making the qualification competition for his sport. Bakker would need to travel between Salt Lake and Lake Placid but no sponsors would sponsor him since Olympic Athletes are self funded. CK Sports reached out to their contacts and brands, once this happened Bakker became officially self funded. Bakker then hit Moore with another problem, he needed equipment to compete, actually the whole olympic team needed equipment to compete. See most of the Skeleton equipment was old and outdated, the sole US manufacturer who manufactured the equipment went out of business and since the equipment that the US team could use needed to only be manufactured in the US.
Moore’s team went to work, they had the idea to reach out to Florida Atlantic University (FAU) engineering department. They set a meeting with Bakker and CK’s team with the Dept. Chair and they utilized FAU’s wind tunnels and their PHD programs students to create the next generation in Skeleton Sleds. The team then worked with he University’s legal team to give Bakker 50% ownership of the intellectual property relating to the newly designed sled. Bakker will receive royalties for as long as the sled is manufactured by the manufacturer that the university and Bakker have contracted with. Bakker and the team now have their own custom sleds available to use in stead of the used out dated ones.
Moore’s roster has grown as well including NIL athletes for major universities, a top skateboarder, an MMA Fighter (who fights with UFC’s Showtime Pettis’s team), several Olympic Athletes and many other various athletes from a variety of other types of professional sports.
“Even Fixers Need A Mentor”
Every “Fixer” needs a strong mentor behind them, Moore has cultivated a Sports Division under the guidance and friendship with CK Talent’s founder and one of the most influential talent managers in Hollywood and the world, Craig Rogalski, who Moore affectionately refers to as his brother. Rogalski mentored Moore from the very beginning (3 years ago) when he saw the drive in him to be the best and wanted to create an opportunity and pathway for Moore to succeed. This is when others did not see Moore becoming a successful Sports Manager. So when Rogalski made him sports division director of the prominent agency, Rogalski’s peers and staff questioned his decision to put Moore in charge of the division. Rogalski said: “Moore earned his spot as the Divisions Director on his own through his hard work and dedication to the industry, the talent and the agency.”
Sources within CK Talent have told us the two are inseparable sometimes talking on the phone for at least two hours daily with each other. Rogalski in a recent interview said: “he envisioned a sports division within his agency to be run by athletes for athletes.”
“The Fixer’s Squad”
Many sports divisions and agencies are not run by athletes with athlete staff. Moore working side by side with Rogalski and has grown the division to include a prominent and well credentialed staff of athlete scouts, Jr. Athlete Managers, social media staff, a former NCAA Compliance Director and a former Marketing VP of an NFL team.
Moore and his team are very selective as to what athletes they sign. CK Talent as an agency already has a “Tough to be represented by” reputation but Moore and his team are even tougher to be represented by. Moore’s team prefers to look at the athlete in their entirety, with money being a minor factor. Moore says money is third or fourth on his list for signing an athlete. Moore does not have to “buy” his athletes as most agents have to do or promise them cars, homes, money, etc. Moore does not believe in making these promises to athletes and he does not have to. Moore also believes in not having a huge roster as most agents and managers want, he believes in quality of representation over quantity represented. Athletes come to him because they want proper representation by a manager who cares about the their careers and their future in their sport, these athletes are looking to be managed in the proper way.
